Napkins
by Order of the Aether
Summary: A short conversation about secrets, recovery, and giving others room to heal. Or about napkins. It's really quite interchangeable. Post-CA:TWS, no slash, the Usual AU.


**A/N: I made Li'l cry a bit with this scene, so I guess it's more melancholy than my other stories. Heh. Anyway, I just needed Steve being kind and giving Bucky his space to heal, so this came of that. I hope you enjoy it.**

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 **Napkins**

Steve kept pens around his house, in flat cups on tables or in plastic packaging in drawers. Bucky knew this because he'd often seek them out—especially at night, when buried memories or long nightmares or some combination of the two would flood back. He'd stumble into the kitchen, flick on a switch and blink in the sudden brightness, or sit in the dark where the moonlight came through the slats in the blinds, and he'd write.

Napkins were never in short supply, and Steve never missed them, so he'd use those. All around the edges, in uneven lines and colored ink, big and sprawling when he wrote in the dark and tiny when he had to squeeze the words into a corner, he'd write.

At first it was just a word or phrase—a color, a word, a sound, or the impression of a dream. But as time went on (and the nightmares got worse) they'd get longer, rambling on until it was almost a story, crossing one napkin after another and onto the backs and insides until sometimes he wasn't sure where they began or ended himself.

They were himself, or all he remembered of who he was—secret thoughts that the dark brought out to give him a hint, a clue, a road-map of who he was and where to go next. They were more precious than he could express, the soul of someone inside him that he didn't know and wanted to know poured out and stored in ink on napkins.

And he hid them all from Steve.

To say he didn't feel a twinge of some dark, heavy feeling whenever he hid them away would be lying. The first, and most frequent thing that Steve promised him was "I will never hurt you"—and while he could never be quite sure what that meant, Bucky still felt as if he was doing something wrong to live like the order was still out that he would be hurt if he remembered anything.

Steve was happy when he remembered. Steve was different. Steve was...that word that Bucky had forgotten that meant "the kind of person that would never hurt you". A small part of Bucky knew that he'd only stop being confused at the concept when he found it to be true. But he couldn't bring himself to test the waters—not yet.

So he kept writing snippets on loose napkins that sometimes tore when the point of the pen dug too deep, and he kept stuffing them between the boxspring and the mattress of his bed where they wouldn't be found.

Which is why, one morning at breakfast, when Steve went into Bucky's room for a short while and came out with a basket full of rumpled bed-sheets and pillowcases, Bucky panicked.

He stormed in on the laundry room just as Steve shut the door on the washer. He looked just as surprised as Bucky felt.

"Hey, Buck," Steve said slowly. "Is something wrong?"

Something white on the linoleum underneath the basket caught Bucky's eye.

A tiny pile of napkins.

Steve had started the washer, and a soft whoosh and click signaled the lock of the door and the machine filling with water. Bucky could feel his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth.

 _Does he know...?_

"Hey, it's okay." The statement sounded more like a question, as Steve closed the tiny space between them. Bucky found himself agitated that Steve was between him and the napkins. "You're going to have to use your words, Buck. What's the matter?"

Bucky tore his gaze away from Steve a split second before he realized the mistake in doing so. Now, on top of confused, Steve was worried.

"I'm sorry, Bucky, I don't—"

"Napkins," Bucky mumbled.

If he was hoping Steve wouldn't pick that up, enhanced hearing ruined it for him. "What?" he asked. "Oh—these." Steve knelt down and picked up the little pile.

 _Don't touch them!_ screamed some unwelcome thing in Bucky's head, but he bit it back before it could reach his voice.

"Here you go." Steve folded down some errant edges and held them on an outstretched hand. "They were stuck to the mattress cover. I thought you'd want them back."

Bucky stared at the offending objects for some time. The washer switched modes and started to hum as water rushed around the turbine.

"Read them?" Bucky mumbled, almost afraid of the answer.

Steve's eyes went a little dark. "No. If you wanted them hidden—no. It's not my place."

Bucky felt his throat start to work, and he hung his head.

Gratitude and shame made a really weird sensation whenever they clashed.

Steve's hand reached up and guided Bucky's head to his shoulder, and the other pressed the napkins into the palm of his flesh hand. Bucky buried his face in Steve's shoulder and said nothing.

 _I will never hurt you. I will never—is this what that means?_ Bucky wondered. As Steve continued to talk, Bucky felt his heartbeat in his ears, only beginning to slow from the breakneck run. He couldn't hear what Steve was saying, too focused instead on the machine's soft, rhythmic whoosh, and the coarse feel of thin paper against his skin.

He gripped the tiny papers in his right hand. Steve let go and let him hold them, shifting his hand instead to Bucky's back.

Somehow, Bucky knew that Steve wouldn't ask about what he'd written. Not now. Maybe not ever.

That would be fine. Maybe he'd tell him some other way.

With that, the last of his thudding heartbeat began to calm.

"Thank you," he found himself murmuring into Steve's shoulder.

"You're welcome," was the ready answer. Steve hadn't yet released him, but when Bucky lifted his head, Steve let go and took a step back as if he'd been waiting on it.

"Buck," he began before Bucky could think to go. Bucky looked up.

Steve seemed cautious. "You know you can talk to me whenever you need to, right?" he asked.

Bucky managed a nod. Of course he knew. That didn't make it easy, but he knew.

Steve gave a short, almost sad laugh, but it seemed to break the low mood that hung on him. "Sure," he said. "'Course you do. I trust you."

With that, Steve clapped Bucky on the shoulder and moved past him (a soft murmur like "excuse me" springing out of him by habit), out of the tiny laundry room and into the hall. "I can clean up the breakfast dishes, if you're finished," he called over one shoulder.

Bucky shrugged—only the right shoulder moved—and the rough edges of the napkins scratched briefly at his palm.

"I'm done," he answered, almost sounding conversational, and followed after Steve.

the end

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 **A/N: Thanks for reading, guys. I hope your holiday season is going well. Reviews are napkins, willingly shared.**


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